The Thanksgiving Gathering
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: Set Thanksgiving Day, season three. Sheldon is naturally not happy when his usual routine for the day is altered. T for a swear word or two. Bon appetite!


**I remembered when Penny invited the guys to spend Thanksgiving with her, and I thought that it would be a good idea to write, but I had to make sure they didn't do this in an episode first.**

**I own nothing…not even the idea…man!**

"Happy Thanksgiving, Sheldon," a cheerful Leonard said as his roommate entered the living area. He had the television on, and an elderly stand-in news reporter was covering a fire in western Arizona. He wasn't really listening, but it gave him something to do while waiting for the parade.

Sheldon scoffed. "Hardly." He entered the kitchen and reached for his Big Bran cereal.

"Big Bran, really?" Leonard said. "Sheldon, it's not that bad!"

"Well, of course you would say that, Leonard!" Sheldon snapped, pouring his cereal and measuring out his quarter cup of two percent milk. "You are not thinking about the health hazards that this situation can present."

"Health haz-Sheldon you're being ridiculous!" Leonard put down the remote and stood.

"I am _through_ with you altering our customary Thanksgiving procedure!" He said, setting the cereal down. "It always happens the same way. Raj and Howard come over for the parade, we eat, watch whatever movie wins either three votes or my vote and one other, and then play twenty questions and laser obstacle hangman-Thanksgiving themed, and I go to bed at nine o' clock." He looked at Leonard. "Do you still fail to see the problem?"

"Oh no, I see it," Leonard said. "We just are thinking of different problems."

Sheldon wasn't finished. "In 2006 you had your grandmother over for this holiday, and she took over the food preparations. Sound familiar to the circumstances today?"

"Sheldon, let me explain the difference to you," Leonard said. "No turkey carving is going to be performed in the nude."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad of that," Sheldon responded, "but the fact is I will be eating my dinner in a strange place, prepared by someone who I do not trust around food regardless of her profession!"

Leonard groaned. "Penny's apartment is not a strange place, Sheldon. You've eaten there before. You even spent a night there while I was in Las Vegas. And she's perfectly capable of fixing dinner."

"She's perfectly capable of _carrying _the food to us once it's prepared, Leonard. Her cooking skills, however? When she made French Toast on Oatmeal day, she held them up in her hands: hands that were not covered by gloves. I refuse to eat something she's prepared without a watchful eye ensuring the sanitary standards of mine are met!"

"If it makes you feel any better, Sheldon, I'm going over to help her before we eat."

Sheldon looked incredulous. "You think that makes me feel _better_?"

Leonard sighed. "I'm sure you'll be fine, Sheldon?"

"_Sure_? How can you possibly be _sure_?"

"You're right, I couldn't." Leonard conceded. "But the fact of the matter is that we're watching the parade and eating Thanksgiving dinner at Penny's, and you're just going to have to deal with that. You're a big boy."

* * *

_Knock knock knock _"Penny?" _Knock knock knock _"Penny?" _Knock knock knock _"Penny?"

Penny looked up from the food spread out on her counter. "Dear God in Heaven," she moaned to herself. Ever since suggesting that the guys celebrate Thanksgiving with her, she'd been determined to make it perfect. She'd gotten everything together in advance and had gotten up early to make room for anything that didn't go right. This summoning from the hallway was certainly one of those things.

Opening the door, Penny greeted her neighbors in her typical way: a quick kiss on Leonard's cheek and a polite smile directed at Sheldon. "Hey guys. You're early."

"Well, Sheldon just-"

"I'm concerned for my health."

Penny looked taken aback. "Why?"

"You're cooking; what other reason do I need?"

Penny sighed. "I'm actually using the cooking book you gave me for my birthday. I _can_ take a hint."

"You gave her a birthday present?" Leonard asked, looking at his friend.

"It's a non-optional social convention," he explained. "I gave it to her in advance as to not chance walking in on you giving her _your_ present."

"I gave her a…oh," Leonard said, turning slightly pink. Penny laughed. "I promise, Sheldon, gloves will be worn, and all the recipes are out of the book. Okay?"

Sheldon sighed. "All right," he said in an annoyed tone.

"Sorry about that," Leonard said once Sheldon had left.

"Oh, it's fine," Penny said, brushing it off. "I anticipated it."

"Are all the recipes out of the book?"

"Well…he doesn't have to eat the other ones." She grinned when Leonard shook his head at her playfully. "What can I help you with?

"Get the turkey out of the freezer, will you?" She balanced a box of miscellaneous kitchen ware on her knee. "Big-ass thing, it barely fits in my tiny little freezer. Make sure that when you get it you don't dump out the rest of the crap that's in there."

"Gotcha." Leonard opened the freezer door. Less than a minute later, he fell backward onto the floor, the turkey in his lap and the rest of the freezer's contents around him.

It was Penny's turn to shake her head. "Didn't you refer what you were coming to do as 'helping?'?"

* * *

"Okay, now that that's over, is it finally time to eat?" Howard asked. Penny's couch sat three maximum, and in order to have eating room only two should sit there at a time. Penny had one other chair, a green one that Sheldon deemed satisfactory for him to sit upon, when placed just to the right of the couch. It was there he sat, and Howard and Raj took the couch, since Penny reasoned that since she sat there every day, she and Leonard could deal with the slightly less comfortable bench that usually housed her stuffed animals in her bedroom. It was small, but could easily seat two people who didn't mind being close. It had taken twenty minutes to arrange the living room so all five could sit facing each other, but it was finally finished.

Penny had set the food out nicely on the counter, and it looked as neat and orderly as her apartment did. She'd spent the past three days cleaning it. The four guys filled their plates with the fruit of the day's labors, both Penny and Leonard sighing when Sheldon didn't rant about the foods that did not appear in the Penny's birthday cookbook. He did notice, however, and shot a glance at them when he came to the first "foreign" plate.

After the fivesome had taken their food, they sat around the coffee table to give thanks. Raj started, Wolowitz translating for him. "I thank this country for giving me a job doing something I love, and thank you to Sheldon for helping me out when I was endangering of being deported."

"I thank the parents of my generation's females, but I ask that they start lowering their standards a bit, I mean, not everyone has an eight-pack!"

"Wow," Penny mouthed to Leonard as the engineer finished.

"I thank the writers of the cookbook that is sitting next to the sink," Sheldon said. "They are the reason I'm still alive. I'd have a long list of other things to be thankful for, but they are all laden with sarcasm." Oh, and per my mother's request: 'God is great.'

"I thought you didn't understand sarcasm," Howard put in.

"I am learning," Sheldon said. "As pathetic as that may be."

"Okay, my turn," Leonard broke in. "I'm thankful for my job, my friends, and for my girlfriend. And, following the Bill of Rights' format, anything that I forgot to mention but am thankful for, I thank you now."

Penny had lost him on "Bill of Rights' format," but she knew that her turn had come. "You guys are the family I left in Nebraska," she said. She wanted to add, "Depending on who I'm comparing you to, that may or may not be a good thing," but she restrained herself since she really was thankful for them. "I am not being sarcastic in saying you guys are great, and I don't know what I'd do, or where I'd be right now, if it wasn't for you guys. And Leonard, I'm especially thankful for you." She kissed his cheek. "Even if you can't get a turkey out of the freezer without falling over." Raj and Howard smirked, picturing that.

"Happy Thanksgiving, everybody," Leonard added, and the fivesome began to eat.

**Hope you liked it! Review if you want, of course I'd love for you to. Oh, and my two unfinished stories…I'm working on them, I promise. Neither of them are abandoned. **


End file.
